This paper defends the naïve thesis that the method of experiment has per se an epistemic superiority over the method of computer simulation, a view that has been rejected by some philosophers writing about simulation, and whose grounds have been hard to pin down by its defenders. I further argue that this superiority does not come from the experiment’s object being materially similar to the target in the world that the investigator is trying to learn about, as both sides of (...) dispute over the epistemic superiority thesis have assumed. The superiority depends on features of the question and on a property of natural kinds that has been mistaken for material similarity. Seeing this requires holding other things equal in the comparison of the two methods, thereby exposing that, under the conditions that will be specified, the simulation is necessarily epistemically one step behind the corresponding experiment. Practical constraints like feasibility and morality mean that scientists do not often face an other-things- equal comparison when they choose between experiment and simulation. Nevertheless, I argue, awareness of this superiority and of the general distinction between experiment and simulation is important for maintaining motivation to seek answers to new questions. (shrink)

We analyze a series of interviews with Estonian humanities researchers to explore topics related to the beginning of academic careers and the relationships with supervisors and mentors. We show how researchers strive to have meaningful relationships and produce what they consider quality research in the conditions of a system that is very strongly oriented towards internationalization and project-based funding, where their efforts are compromised by a lack of policies helping them establish a stable position in academia. Leaving researchers to (...) face these obstacles alone places a great burden on them and may lead to a loss of talent in academia. Identifying and addressing these issues is thus important for both the well-being of early career researchers and the future of academia. (shrink)

As most of its readers are aware, the Critique of Pure Reason is primarily concerned not with empirical, but with a priori knowledge. For the most part, the Kant of the first Critique tends to assume that experience, and the knowledge that is based on it, is unproblematic. The problem with which he is concerned is that of how we can be capable of substantive knowledge independently of experience. At the same time, however, the notion of experience (...) plays a crucial role in the central arguments of the Critique. For, again as most readers of the Critique know, Kant aims to show how we can have synthetic a priori knowledge by showing that the categories, or pure concepts of the understanding, are conditions of the possibility of experience. This means that, whether or not Kant is concerned with the notion of experience for its own sake, his account of a priori knowledge carries with it at least some commitments regarding the character of experience. If the account of a priori knowledge is to be successful, then experience has to be the kind of thing for which the categories can, in principle, serve as conditions of possibility. More specifically, experience must involve not only the senses, but also thought or understanding, for otherwise the claim that it presupposes a certain specific set of concepts is simply unintelligible. And indeed at least some parts of the Critique, in particular the so-called subjective deduction in the first edition, and the briefer passages which correspond to it in the second edition, seem to be intended to show how this requirement is met. That is, they are concerned not so much with showing that experience is governed by the categories, as with elaborating a view of experience as involving conceptual activity überhaupt. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a comparison between the philosophies of Husserl and James in relation to their concepts of experience. Whereas various authors have acknowledged the affinity between James’ early psychology and Husserl’s phenomenology, the late development of James’ philosophy is often considered in opposition to Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology. This is because James’ radical empiricism achieves a non-dual dimension of experience that precedes the functional division into subject and object, thus contrasting with the phenomenological analysis of the (...) dual structure of intentionality. However, I argue that the later “genetic” development of phenomenology converges with some central aspects of James’ radical empiricism. This is because genetic phenomenology leads us to conceive of the flow of primal impressions as a fundamental dimension of experience that precedes the subject-object duality and is at the base of the process of co-constitution of the subject and the object in reciprocal dependence. At the same time, Husserl conceives of the impressional core of experience as structured by formal conditions that depend on the concrete constitution of an embodied subject. For this reason, I argue that Husserl’s genetic phenomenology can complement James’ radical empiricism, thus leading to the development of the doctrine of pure experience as a form of empirical and not metaphysical realism. (shrink)

In this critical review of Robert Hanna's ingenious book (2006), I aim to support Hanna‟s main insightful reading of Kant, namely what he calls “a priori truth with a human face," without appealing to Kant's divide between a priori and a posteriori and analytic and synthetic truths. My suggestion is that transcendental propositions are necessary neither in the usual epistemological sense that analytic propositions are, let alone in the metaphysical sense that some empirical propositions are. Instead, they are necessary in (...) the theoretical domain in the weak alternative sense that they make possible the empirical recognition of appearances as an object as an indispensable condition of our self-consciousness experience, and they are a priori in the practical domain in the sense that their truth is vital for our self-comprehension as human beings. (shrink)

This essay is not about what love is. It is about what self-ascriptions of love do. People typically self-ascribe romantic love when a nexus of feelings, beliefs, attitudes, values, commitments, experiences, and personal histories matches their conception of romantic love. But what shapes this conception? And (how) can we adjudicate amongst conflicting conceptions? -/- Self-ascriptions of love do not merely describe the underlying nexus of attitudes and beliefs. They also change it. This essay describes how conceptions of love affect romantic (...) experience. I limn distinctions between love and obsessive infatuation and explore ways language can cultivate queer romantic preferences. Since conceptions of love are shaped, often implicitly, by terms available in one’s linguistic community, the resulting nexus of concepts and conceptions manifests linguistic luck. I suggest ways we might sculpt the language of love to better understand—and change—ourselves. Love can help us flourish and so can our “love” language. (shrink)

Revolutionary violence stems from the conatus of survival, from the appetite for life and joy rather than from the desire to destroy and the hubristic pretension to punish. It is an incursion of one's desire to affirm life and annihilate pain. Following Laruelle's methodology of nonstandard philosophy, I conclude that revolutionary violence is the product of an intensive expansion of life. Pure violence, conceived in non-philosophical terms, is a pre-lingual, presubjective force affected by the “lived,; analogous to Badiou's void and (...) it is radically revolutionary. It is fundamentally different from Benjamin's lawmaking “divine violence; and its appropriations by Žižek. Revolutionary experience is inevitably translated into language. What preserves the revolutionary substance in a post-revolution political discourse is that it is constantly checked by the sense of fidelity to the experience of the revolutionary event. Agamben, Benjamin, Schmidt and Žižek are discussed from an essentially non-philosophical stance, informed by Laruelle's theory that has been supplemented in some aspects by Badiou's concept of the pre-lingual event. (shrink)

Formalization of the semantics of generics has been considered extremely challenging for their inherent vagueness and context-dependence that hinder a single fixed truth condition. The present study suggests a way to formalize the semantics of generics by constructing flexible acceptance conditions with comparative probabilities. Findings from our in-depth psycholinguistic experiment show that two comparative probabilities—cue validity and prevalence—indeed construct the flexible acceptance conditions for generics in a systematic manner that can be applied to a diverse types of generics: (...) Acceptability of IS_A relational generics is mostly determined by prevalence without interaction with cue validity; feature-describing generics are endorsed acceptable with high cue validity, albeit mediated by prevalence; and acceptability of feature-describing generics with low cue validity is mostly determined by prevalence irrespective of cue validity. Such systematic patterns indicate a great potential for the formalization of the semantics of generics. (shrink)

This article begins with some common or well-known sentiments about the present pandemic era and our experience of it, and moves by way of these toward discussion of the concepts of human existence and the “world” in the broadest sense of both terms. Departing from but also radicalizing the notion that “everything changed” in this pandemic time, I discuss certain logical difficulties that pertain to conceiving of or coherently talking about strict totalities which would include our own selves. This (...) will have significant consequences for our conception of the world (when taken in its absolute or broadest sense), and in what sense there are or could be multiple such immersive wholes of experience. Ultimately, I will suggest that in being able to name such pervasive or all encompassing phenomena, phenomena which are “always more” than what it is possible for us to indicate, that human existence is fundamentally liminal, or essentially between and borderline. Being essential or fundamental, this liminality or betweenness will form the basis which precedes and makes possible the apparently simple activities of, for instance, counting time or comparing and contrasting ordinary things, activities which would otherwise seem to require no outside support or conditions. (shrink)

Conditional perfection is the phenomenon in which conditionals are strengthened to biconditionals. In some contexts, “If A, B” is understood as if it meant “A if and only if B.” We present and discuss a series of experiments designed to test one of the most promising pragmatic accounts of conditional perfection. This is the idea that conditional perfection is a form of exhaustification—that is a strengthening to an exhaustive reading, triggered by a question that the conditional answers. If a speaker (...) is asked how B comes about, then the answer “If A, B” is interpreted exhaustively to meaning that A is the only way to bring about B. Hence, “A if and only if B.” We uncover evidence that conditional perfection is a form of exhaustification, but not that it is triggered by a relationship to a salient question. (shrink)

Recent studies indicate that indicative conditionals like "If people wear masks, the spread of Covid-19 will be diminished" require a probabilistic dependency between their antecedents and consequents to be acceptable (Skovgaard-Olsen et al., 2016). But it is easy to make the slip from this claim to the thesis that indicative conditionals are acceptable only if this probabilistic dependency results from a causal relation between antecedent and consequent. According to Pearl (2009), understanding a causal relation involves multiple, hierarchically organized conceptual dimensions: (...) prediction, intervention, and counterfactual dependence. In a series of experiments, we test the hypothesis that these conceptual dimensions are differentially encoded in indicative and counterfactual conditionals. If this hypothesis holds, then there are limits as to how much of a causal relation is captured by indicative conditionals alone. Our results show that the acceptance of indicative and counterfactual conditionals can become dissociated. Furthermore, it is found that the acceptance of both is needed for accepting a causal relation between two co-occurring events. The implications that these findings have for the hypothesis above, and for recent debates at the intersection of the psychology of reasoning and causal judgment, are critically discussed. Our findings are consistent with viewing indicative conditionals as answering predictive queries requiring evidential relevance (even in the absence of direct causal relations). Counterfactual conditionals in contrast target causal relevance, specifically. Finally, we discuss the implications our results have for the yet unsolved question of how reasoners succeed in constructing causal models from verbal descriptions. (shrink)

I describe two traditions of philosophical accounts of evidence: one characterizes the notion in terms of signs of success, the other characterizes the notion in terms of conditions of success. The best examples of the former rely on the probability calculus, and have the virtues of generality and theoretical simplicity. The best examples of the latter describe the features of evidence which scientists appeal to in practice, which include general features of methods, such as quality and relevance, and general (...) features of evidence, such as patterns in data, concordance with other evidence, and believability of the evidence. Two infamous episodes from biomedical research help to illustrate these features. Philosophical characterization of these latter features—conditions of success—has the virtue of potential relevance to, and descriptive accuracy of, practices of experimental scientists. (shrink)

This dissertation is devoted to empirically contrasting the Suppositional Theory of conditionals, which holds that indicative conditionals serve the purpose of engaging in hypothetical thought, and Inferentialism, which holds that indicative conditionals express reason relations. Throughout a series of experiments, probabilistic and truth-conditional variants of Inferentialism are investigated using new stimulus materials, which manipulate previously overlooked relevance conditions. These studies are some of the first published studies to directly investigate the central claims of Inferentialism empirically. In contrast, the Suppositional (...) Theory of conditionals has an impressive track record through more than a decade of intensive testing. The evidence for the Suppositional Theory encompasses three sources. Firstly, direct investigations of the probability of indicative conditionals, which substantiate “the Equation” (P(if A, then C) = P(C|A)). Secondly, the pattern of results known as “the defective truth table” effect, which corroborates the de Finetti truth table. And thirdly, indirect evidence from the uncertain and-to-if inference task. Through four studies each of these sources of evidence are scrutinized anew under the application of novel stimulus materials that factorially combine all permutations of prior and relevance levels of two conjoined sentences. The results indicate that the Equation only holds under positive relevance (P(C|A) – P(C|¬A) > 0) for indicative conditionals. In the case of irrelevance (P(C|A) – P(C|¬A) = 0), or negative relevance (P(C|A) – P(C|¬A) < 0), the strong relationship between P(if A, then C) and P(C|A) is disrupted. This finding suggests that participants tend to view natural language conditionals as defective under irrelevance and negative relevance (Chapter 2). Furthermore, most of the participants turn out only to be probabilistically coherent above chance levels for the uncertain and-to-if inference in the positive relevance condition, when applying the Equation (Chapter 3). Finally, the results on the truth table task indicate that the de Finetti truth table is at most descriptive for about a third of the participants (Chapter 4). Conversely, strong evidence for a probabilistic implementation of Inferentialism could be obtained from assessments of P(if A, then C) across relevance levels (Chapter 2) and the participants’ performance on the uncertain-and-to-if inference task (Chapter 3). Yet the results from the truth table task suggest that these findings could not be extended to truth-conditional Inferentialism (Chapter 4). On the contrary, strong dissociations could be found between the presence of an effect of the reason relation reading on the probability and acceptability evaluations of indicative conditionals (and connate sentences), and the lack of an effect of the reason relation reading on the truth evaluation of the same sentences. A bird’s eye view on these surprising results is taken in the final chapter and it is discussed which perspectives these results open up for future research. (shrink)

In this paper, we develop an analysis of the structure and content of loneliness. We argue that this is an emotion of absence-an affective state in which certain social goods are regarded as out of reach for the subject of experience. By surveying the range of social goods that appear to be missing from the lonely person's perspective, we see what it is that can make this emotional condition so subjectively awful for those who undergo it, including the profound (...) sense of being unable to realise oneself, in collaboration with others. (shrink)

Sensations can occur in the absence of perception and yet be experienced ‘as if’ seen, heard, tasted, or otherwise perceived. Two concepts used to investigate types of these sensory-like mental phenomena (SLMP) are mental imagery and hallucinations. Mental imagery is used as a concept for investigating those SLMP that merely resemble perception in some way. Meanwhile, the concept of hallucinations is used to investigate those SLMP that are, in some sense, compellingly like perception. This may be a difference of degree. (...) Attempts to reliably differentiate between instances of each type of SLMP remain unresolved. Despite this, the concepts of mental imagery and hallucinations are each routinely used independently of the other. These uses are especially interesting in those published accounts of experiments where equivalent findings about the neuroanatomical correlates of SLMP are reported in support of diverging knowledge-claims about the role of SLMP in neurocognitive processes. This practice presents a puzzle. To examine one aspect of this puzzle, I compare the uses of these two scientific concepts in three ways: examining their roles in differentiating between types of SLMP; exploring how their respective historical developments intersect; and analysing their contributions in neuroimaging experiments. In presenting this series of comparative analyses, I will draw on three themes from historical, philosophical, and social studies of scientific practices: interest in material contributions to knowledge; accounts of how concepts are used in experiments; and explorations of the historical conditions within which current practices emerge. Building on this literature, my comparative analyses supports five related claims. My first claim is that the concepts of mental imagery and hallucinations are each used as independent tools in neuroimaging experiments. My second claim is that, as experimental tools, the concepts of mental imagery and hallucinations are each used for investigating discrete epistemic goals. My third claim is that there are implicit interdependent associations that structure the uses of these two concepts as tools for independently investigating these discrete epistemic goals in neuroimaging experiments. This third claim rests on my analyses of both past and present uses of each concept. Firstly, as seen in their intersecting histories, there are disciplined performances of using the concepts of mental imagery and hallucinations that carry-along shared associations about the mediating role of SLMP in thought. Secondly, these interdependent ‘mediator-view’ associations continue to structure the independent uses of each concept as a tool for investigating SLMP in pursuit of specific goals. Taking this further, my fourth claim is that recognising the structured uses of the concepts of mental imagery and hallucinations can help to account for how equivalent SLMP-neuro-correlates are generated in support of diverging knowledge-claims. Finally, my fifth claim is that the structured uses of these concepts as tools can contribute to experiments in ways analogous to, yet not equivalent with, the active contributions of material instruments. Bringing these claims together, I argue that the concepts of mental imagery and hallucinations operate as structured tools that can actively contribute to the knowledge generated by neuroimaging experiments. In presenting this argument I seek to demonstrate that examining the structured uses of concepts as tools can complement existing approaches to studying how the heterogeneous dynamics of experimental practices can come to contribute to scientific knowledge in unintended ways. (shrink)

The main question that we address in this chapter is what to say about reportedly libertarian experiences of free agency – in other words, experiences of options as being open, and up to oneself to decide among, such that, if they are accurate or veridical, then (at a minimum) indeterminism must be true. A great deal rides on this question. If normal experiences of free agency are libertarian, and if compatibilists cannot explain them away, then all of us may be (...) under systematic illusion at almost every moment of our waking lives. That is, our experiences would be illusory if humans do not in fact satisfy libertarian conditions (e.g., if indeterminism does not occur in the right time or place during decision-making, or we lack agent-causal powers). In some sense, more rides on the question of whether we are agents of the sort that we experience ourselves as being than on the question of whether we have the type of control required for moral responsibility. At worst, we are not responsible in only one sense if we lack what libertarians say we need. Yet even then, we would not be under systematic experiential illusion during most of our waking lives, as we are if our experience is libertarian, yet false. (shrink)

The essay problematizes the incorporation of LGBTI rights promotion into the US and EU foreign policies. First, the paper examines the two actors’ key documents, speeches, and policies devoted to the promotion of LGBTI rights abroad, the similarities and differences between the two actors’ approaches, attending to the tendencies of their evolution and the ongoing development. Second, the article discusses the internal conditions in target countries that are conducive to the success and failure of international support of LGBTI rights. (...) Finally, the study makes a critical overview of the measures that are argued to be necessary to increase the efficiency of LGBTI rights promotion in countries with most negative current trends in and/or poorest records on LGBTI rights. (shrink)

According to Kierkegaard, truth is superimposed on the objective character that encompasses historical investigation and speculative exercise, dialoguing with subjectivity and the limit-condition of interiority. Focusing on such existential-hermeneutic principle, the article points out spirituality as an epistemic-existential experience involving truth as a paradox in Kierkegaard, that overlaps the logical-discursive mediation and implies a dialectical-subjective construction that transcends reason historical-objective. Thus, characterizing spirituality as an epistemic-existential experience that contains non-rational evidence, the article resorts to Rudolf Otto's phenomenology to (...) underline the sacred and its absolute distinction from natural reality and its perceptible character, emphasizing the non-rational element and its supra-rational nature in the numinous, which escapes logical-rational processes and converges to the apprehension of the rational and the non-rational in the notion of Divinity. Therefore, if the relationship with God overlaps subjectivity and objectivity and overcomes the aforementioned epistemic structural scheme, the article, based on the philosophical theology of Paul Tillich, focuses on the concept of Spiritual Presence and on life without ambiguity, which implies the union transcendent and correlates agape and gnosis in an ecstatic-religious movement that encompasses the self-manifestation, self-revelation and self-communication of the Absolute and Transcendent. (shrink)

The monograph reveals challenging issues of small and medium enterprises development in the European Union and East-Partnership countries. Special attention is paid to a new paradigm of financing investments and fostering innovations at all levels of legal entities including SMEs, enhancing innovative entrepreneurship in conditions of global social and technological challenges as well as determining priority sectors for small and medium enterprises as drivers of economic growth. The authors of the monograph emphasize on such European approaches to financing SMEs (...) as crowd-funding and SME-bonds, analyze experience of applying fiscal instruments to support investment and innovations. The researchers underline the role of social investment as an innovative strategy for European SMEs that could be applied in Ukraine and East-partnership countries, suggest new conceptual approach to the evaluation of innovative business development. They also analyse trends of Ukrainian IT enterprises development in the context of modern information services in a global market. Additional attention is paid to the analysis of SMEs’ entrepreneurial potential in conditions of global social and technological changes, estimation effects of applying electronic governance technologies to provide administrative services by public authorities of various levels of governance. Finally, the researchers disclose economic mentality of legal entities as an informal side of financial assets and substantiate the necessity of creation entrepreneurial universities as drivers of innovative development of economy. The materials of the monograph will be useful to scholars, financial managers of companies, financial analysts, representatives of state bodies who implement the state policy in the field of SMEs development in the East-partnership countries, as well as students of economic universities. (shrink)

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a mental health condition in which the experience of a traumatic event causes a series of psychiatric and behavioral symptoms such as hypervigilance, insomnia, irritability, aggression, constricted affect, and self-destructive behavior. This paper investigates two case studies to argue that the experience of PTSD is not restricted to humans alone; we have good epistemic reason to hold that some animals can experience genuine PTSD, given our current and best clinical understanding of the disorder (...) in humans. I will use this evidence to argue for two claims. First, because the causal structure of PTSD plausibly requires reference to a traumatic conscious experience in order to explain subsequent behaviors, the fact that animals can have PTSD provides new evidence for animal consciousness. Second, the discovery of PTSD in animals puts pressure on accounts which hold that animal behavior can be fully explained without reference to subjective experience. (shrink)

I discuss Alston's theory of religious experience and maintain that his argument to the effect that it is rational to suppose that the 'mystical doxastic practice' is epistemically reliable does not stand up to scrutiny. While Alston's transitions from practical to epistemic rationality don't work here, his arguments may be taken to show that, under certain conditions, it is not epistemically irresponsible to trust one's religious experiences.

The article presents a critique of aesthetic realism. The core of this theory contains three theses: (AR) aesthetic properties are the sources of aesthetic experience; (PA) perceptual acquaintance with the objects of aesthetic evaluation is a sine qua non condition for making an judgment; (DM) aesthetic properties are describable. Arguments of faultless disagreement, esse is percipi, and zombie art cast doubt on theses (AR) and (DM). Based on this critique, an alternative nominalist theory of aesthetic experience is proposed, (...) in which the perceptual properties of the object are considered as sufficient condition of aesthetic experience. (shrink)

Since the millennium, first person accounts of experience have been accepted as philosophically valid, potentially useful sources of information about the nature of mind and self. Several Vedic sciences rely on such first person accounts to discuss experience and consciousness. This paper shows that their insights define the information structure of experience in agreement with a scientific theory of mind fulfilling all presently known philosophical and scientific conditions. Experience has two separate components, its information content, (...) and a separate ‘witness aspect’, which can reflect on all forms of experience, and with training be strengthened until its power of reflection identifies it as the innermost aspect of ‘self’. The Vedic sciences, Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta develop these themes. Sankhya identifies the different aspects of experience, outer and inner; Yoga practices lead the mind to inner states without information content (samadhi) in which the experience of the witness (sakshi) is strengthened and deepened. Vedanta states the nature of the ‘self’ is to know itself directly without intermediary. All this requires the witness to have a singular loop structure. The information structure of experience therefore has two aspects, information content plus a singular loop endowing it with a subjective sense of ‘Self’. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant famously thought that the presuppositions of Newtonian physics are the necessary conditions of the possibility of experience in general – both “outer” and “inner” experience. Today we know, of course, that Newtonian physics only applies to a limited domain of physical reality and is radically inadequate in the quantum and relativistic domains. This gives rise to an interesting question: could the radical changes in physics suggest new conditions for the possibility of experience? In (...) other words, does post-Newtonian physics suggest a post-Kantian view of human experience? (shrink)

In this paper, we present three necessary conditions for morally responsible animal research that we believe people on both sides of this debate can accept. Specifically, we argue that, even if human beings have higher moral status than nonhuman animals, animal research is morally permissible only if it satisfies (a) an expectation of sufficient net benefit, (b) a worthwhile-life condition, and (c) a no unnecessary-harm/qualified-basic-needs condition. We then claim that, whether or not these necessary conditions are jointly sufficient (...) conditions of justified animal research, they are relatively demanding with the consequence that many animal experiments may fail to satisfy them. (shrink)

We find a simple counterfactual acceptable, it is argued, to the extent that (i) our probability of the consequent under the thought experiment of counterfactually supposing the antecedent is high, (ii) provided the latter is on-topic with respect to the former. Counterfactual supposition is represented by Lewisian imaging. Topicality, by an algebra of subject matters. A topic-sensitive probabilistic logic is then provided, to reason about the acceptability of simple counterfactuals.

Stephen Jay Gould argued that replaying the ‘tape of life’ would result in radically different evolutionary outcomes. Recently, biologists and philosophers of science have paid increasing attention to the theoretical importance of convergent evolution—the independent origination of similar biological forms and functions—which many interpret as evidence against Gould’s thesis. In this paper, we examine the evidentiary relevance of convergent evolution for the radical contingency debate. We show that under the right conditions, episodes of convergent evolution can constitute valid natural (...) experiments that support inferences regarding the deep counterfactual stability of macroevolutionary outcomes. However, we argue that proponents of convergence have problematically lumped causally heterogeneous phenomena into a single evidentiary basket, in effect treating all convergent events as if they are of equivalent theoretical import. As a result, the ‘critique from convergent evolution’ fails to engage with key claims of the radical contingency thesis. To remedy this, we develop ways to break down the heterogeneous set of convergent events based on the nature of the generalizations they support. Adopting this more nuanced approach to convergent evolution allows us to differentiate iterated evolutionary outcomes that are probably common among alternative evolutionary histories and subject to law-like generalizations, from those that do little to undermine and may even support, the Gouldian view of life. (shrink)

The article focuses on the study of specific characteristics of seaports development under conditions of digitalization. The article aims to study features of the development of the international seaport under digitalization to implement the best achievements in Ukraine. The main research method was a systemic-structural approach used to examine seaport digitalization as a part of a logistics chain, including horizontal and vertical links between its elements. To achieve an effective digital transformation, we also used the above method. It helped (...) to study how the factors determined during the study of international practices and possible innovations influence the object under study. The practices, which are of interest for Ukraine and other developing countries, were identified based on the international experience in seaports development under digitalization. The main strategic directions for the digital transformations of the above infrastructural objects were suggested. They involve increasing seaport competitiveness and their effectiveness in the framework of the international transport system. The directions are of interest for public authorities of the governmental and regional levels (while establishing the digitalization policy in the area of sea transport) and the port administrations (while making justified strategic decisions for their development). (shrink)

Dark Tourism represents the intersection of reflections on mortality with the commodification and consumption of death as a tourist experience. It is a complex and contested concept that has been approached from a variety of theoretical standpoints. In this paper, I suggest that a phenomenological analysis of the experiences of those who engage in dark tourism can provide a means of approaching the subject that can both accommodate the diversity of experiences sought by the dark tourist, and deepen our (...) understanding of the nature and purpose of dark tourism. More specifically, I repurpose Cohen’s (Sociology 13(2):179–201, 1979) typology of tourist experience to suggest a phenomenological typology of dark tourist experiences. Following Cohen, I suggest that we can chart the dark tourist experience as a continuum ranging from a pleasure-seeking experience to a meaning-seeking experience, qualified by authenticity-seeking or alienation-avoiding motivations, and the individual tourist’s proximity to or distance from the “centre” of their worldview. Such an analysis allows us to differentiate between tourists whose motivations are more recreational in nature and those whose motivations are more existential. A phenomenological analysis also enables us to further differentiate amongst the different modes of existential experience sought by the “pure” dark tourist and to consider the conditions of possibility necessary for their realisation. (shrink)

Currently, anomalous lived temporality is not included in the main diagnostic criteria or standard symptom checklists. In this article, we present the Transdiagnostic Assessment of Temporal Experience, a structured interview that can be used by researchers and clinicians without a comprehensive phenomenological background to explore abnormal time experiences in persons with abnormal mental conditions regardless of their diagnosis. When extensive data gathered by this scale are available, it will be possible to delineate well-defined anomalous lived temporality profiles for (...) each psychopathological disorder. This instrument may also prove useful for clinicians by providing a more refined assessment of relevant psychopathological symptoms and an in-depth understanding of the patient’s abnormal behaviour as related to specific types of time experience. In the first part of the article, we provide a brief overview of the phenomenological concept of temporality, including pre-phenomenal and phenomenal time, synthesis, conation and synchronization, and of abnormal time experiences in persons affected by psychopathological conditions. In the following part, we describe the basic structure of the interview that comprises seven categories corresponding to the abnormal features of lived temporality: anomalies of synchrony, of time structure, of implicit time flow, of explicit time flow, and anomalous experiences of the past, the present and the future. The paper also includes a section on administration and scoring of the TATE scale, the complete interview and a Likert table for quantifying the frequency, intensity and interference with daily life of the phenomena explored. (shrink)

I argue that Hegel’s Phenomenology is an attempt to prove that human experience displays a sui generis logical structure. This is because, as rational animals who instinctively create a universe of meaning to navigate our environment, the perceptual content of our conscious experience of objects, the desires that motivate our self-conscious experience of action, and the beliefs and values that make up our sociohistorical experience all testify to the presence of rationality as their condition of possibility. (...) As such, Hegel’s Phenomenology not only requires of us that we transform the mission of logic into a description of the immanent logic at the basis of human experience, thereby making the task of logic “anthropological.” It also presents us with a novel model of human experience—one that: demonstrates the rationality already instinctively at work in our bodily sensations, perceptions, and desires; gives an account of the origins of human society and history; and also makes human experience irreducible to cognitive processes in the brain, psychological mechanisms, and the biological imperatives of survival and reproduction. (shrink)

This dissertation provides a theory of the nature of aesthetic experiences on the basis of a theory of aesthetic values. It results in the formulation of the following necessary conditions for an experience to be aesthetic: it must consist of a representation of an object and an accompanying feeling; the representation must instantiate an intrinsic value; and the feeling must be the recognition of that value and bestow it on the object. Since representations are of intrinsic value for (...) different reasons, there are different kinds of aesthetic experiences . By means of certain conceptual links, it is possible to extend this account to other aesthetic entities thus enabling the formulation of a general theory of the aesthetic in non-aesthetic terms. In particular, aesthetic values are identical with subjective dispositions to elicit aesthetic experiences under normal conditions. Accordingly, I endorse anti-realism about aesthetic values: their existence, nature and exemplification are mind-dependent, while their ascriptions to objects have genuine truth-values. I back up this account by arguing against the alternative positions that either take aesthetic values to be objective or deny the truth-aptness of their attributions. Furthermore, I put forward a relativist variant of anti-realism according to which ascriptions of different aesthetic values to a particular object are all correct, given that the aesthetic experiences involved are made under normal conditions and concern the same aesthetically nonevaluative features of that object. For there is no specifically aesthetic norm by means of which one of the faultless aesthetic experiences can be picked out as the only appropriate one. That aesthetic values nevertheless show a normative dimension is ensured by their conformity to a general account of values as capacities to satisfy, or dissatisfy, rational desires. (shrink)

Several theories propose that one of the core functions of inner speech (IS) is to support subjects in the completion of cognitively effortful tasks, especially those involving executive functions (EF). In this paper we focus on two populations who notoriously encounter difficulties in performing EF tasks, namely, people diagnosed with schizophrenia who experience auditory verbal hallucinations (Sz-AVH) and people within the Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). We focus on these two populations because they represent two different ways in which (...) IS can fail to help in EF tasks, which can be illustrative for other mental conditions. First, we review the main components of EF (Section 1). Then we explain the functions that IS is taken to perform in the domain of EF (Section 2) and review the evidence concerning problems about EF in the two populations of our study: Sz-AVH (Section 3) and ASC (Section 4). After this we further detail our account about what a properly functioning IS can do for both populations and how different IS profiles may impact EF performance: in the case of Sz-AVH, the uncontrolled and intrusive character of IS negatively affects EF performance, whereas in ASC, EF is not sufficiently supported by IS, given the tendency in this population to present a diminished use of IS (Section 5). We finally briefly discuss Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Developmental Language Disorders (DLD). (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the implications of grief for philosophical theorising about absence experience. I argue that whilst some absence experiences that occur in grief might be explained by extant philosophical accounts of absence experience, others need different treatment. I propose that grieving subjects' descriptions of feeling as if the world seems empty or a part of them seems missing can be understood as referring to a distinctive type of absence experience. In these profound absence experiences, (...) I will argue, the absence of a person as a condition on various possibilities is made manifest in the structure of experience over time. Thus, by paying close attention to grief, we can see that even accounts of absence experience that are presented as in competition with one another may not be so, and that to explain all kinds of absence experience we sometimes need to appeal to something overlooked in other accounts, and which is neither straightforwardly perceptual or cognitive. I also suggest that we would have good reason to take such experiences to be part of and not merely psychological effects of grief. (shrink)

The conditions of transport and slaughter at the end of their lives are a major challenge to the welfare of agricultural animals. • End-of-life experiences should be of a greater ethical concern than others of similar intensity and duration, due to their position in the animal’s life. • End-of-life welfare can have both internal importance to the animals and external ethical importance to human decision-makers. • We should pay extra care to ensure that the conditions during transport and (...) slaughter are as positive as possible. (shrink)

This paper is an exploration of the multiple meanings that the invention of the brick – this simple artefact that has permitted the raising of complex and durable buildings – has brought to civilisation and to humans in their relationship with the world. I suggest that bricks may have brought a number of novel experiences to society, whose meanings are important for the understanding of the modern condition and its emphasis on rationalism, replicability, precision, standardisation and modularity among other principles. (...) I also point out that bricks, along with rectangular types of packaging, are eminently liminal objects that entail a peculiar form of violence. (shrink)

PURPOSE: The conventional wisdom in dental and medical education is that dental and medical students experience "ethical erosion" over the duration of dental and medical school. There is some evidence for this claim, but in the case of dental education this evidence consists entirely of survey research, which doesn't measure behavior. The purpose of this study was to measure the altruistic behavior of dental students, in order to fill the significant gap in knowledge of how students are disposed to (...) behave, rather than how they are disposed to think. -/- METHODS: To test the altruistic behavior of dental students, we conducted a field experiment using the Ultimatum Game, which is a game commonly used in economics to observe social behavior. Students from each of the four years of dental school played the game in standardized conditions with real money. -/- RESULTS: Students exhibited greater levels of altruism than the general population typically does. Students' altruism peaked in year four. Students' altruism was associated with the socioeconomic status of responder. -/- CONCLUSION: The results suggest that that dental students are more altruistic than the population average and that altruism increases during their education. Thus, if a decreasing ability to behave altruistically is observed during dental school, it is not likely due to a general disposition of students, but rather some factor specific to the educational environment in which the decrease is observed. (shrink)

Recent experimental work has shown that the truth-value judgments of color predications, i.e. utterances of the form “the leaves on my tree are green” or “these walls are brown,” are influenced by slight changes in the context of utterance (Hansen and Chemla 2013, Ziółkowski, 2021). Most explanations of this phenomenon focus on the semantics of color adjectives. However, it is not clear if these explanations do justice to the nuances of the empirical data on context-sensitivity of color predications (Ziółkowski, 2021). (...) In contrast to the adjectival explanations, Agustin Vicente (2015) has recently proposed that the context-sensitivity of color predications can be explained by invoking the polysemy of the noun. In this paper, we present the results of three studies designed to empirically test this hypothesis: a traditional survey experiment (Study 1), an exploratory correlational study inspired by the semantic integration paradigm (Study 2a), and a follow-up experiment (Study 2b) that was designed to mitigate possible shortcomings of Study 2a. The results of our studies present preliminary evidence against Vicente’s theory. (shrink)

People often reason about omissions. One line of research shows that people can distinguish between the semantics of omissive causes and omissive enabling conditions: for instance, not flunking out of college enabled you (but didn’t cause you) to graduate. Another line of work shows that people rely on the normative status of omissive events in inferring their causal role: if the outcome came about because the omission violated some norm, reasoners are more likely to select that omission as a (...) cause. We designed a novel paradigm that tests how norms interact with the semantics of omissive enabling conditions. The paradigm concerns the circuitry of a mechanical device that plays music. Two experiments used the paradigm to stipulate norms and present a distinct set of possibilities to participants. Participants chose which causal verb best described the operations of the machine. The studies revealed that participants’ responses are best predicted by their tendency to consider the semantics of omissive relations. In contrast, norms had little to no effect in participants’ responses. We conclude by marshaling the evidence and considering what role norms may play in people’s understanding of omissions. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the sociality of emotional experience in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. Specifically, I describe four key mechanisms through which an individual's sociocultural context shapes her emotional experience on Nietzsche's view—emotional contagion as habitual affective mimicry, the production of emotions' felt character through the assimilation of dominant social beliefs and norms, affective interpretation à la Christopher Fowles, and the imposition of dominant notions of emotional appropriateness—fleshing out a dimension of Nietzsche's thought which is largely (...) taken for granted but remains undertreated. After detailing these mechanisms, I argue that attending to the sociality of emotional experience in Nietzsche's thought is crucial not only for understanding key elements of his moral psychology (including certain of his reflections on freedom and self‐transformation), but also for understanding his interpretation of nihilism as a psychological‐affective phenomenon produced by the society to which one belongs. On Nietzsche's view, attending to the sociality of emotion helps individuals recognize the way in which the sociocultural contexts they inhabit might undermine their flourishing—and also helps them envision the conditions (especially sociocultural conditions) requisite for healthier, more empowering emotional lives. (shrink)

Governments are increasingly using randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to evaluate policy interventions. RCTs are often understood to provide the highest quality evidence regarding the causal efficacy of an intervention. While randomization plays an essential epistemic role in the context of policy RCTs however, it also plays an important distributive role. By randomly assigning participants to either the intervention or control arm of an RCT, people are subject to different policies and so, often, to different types and levels of benefits. In (...) this paper, I identify one necessary condition as well as a set of sufficient conditions for the permissible use of random assignment by government agencies. I argue first that random assignment is permissible only if it is consistent with governments’ duty to realize morally important outcomes. I argue second that random assignment is permissible in cases where investigators are in a state of genuine equipoise regarding all arms of the experiment and the policy to which people have a claim of justice. Finally, I defend a set of conditions under which random assignment is permissible in cases where one or more arms of a policy RCT are reasonably expected to be either superior or inferior to this policy. (shrink)

In everyday language, we readily attribute experiences to groups. For example, 1 might say, “Spain celebrated winning the European Cup” or “The uncovering of corruption caused the union to think long and hard about its internal structure.” In each case, the attribution makes sense. However, it is quite difficult to give a nonreductive account of precisely what these statements mean because in each case a mental state is ascribed to a group, and it is not obvious that groups can have (...) mental states. In this article, I do not offer an explicit theory of collective experience. Instead, I draw on phenomenological analyses and empirical data in order to provide general conditions that a more specific theory of collective experience must meet in order to be coherent. (shrink)

The methodological differences of understanding, versus explaining, have been at the centre of a century-long methodenstreit debate (and disagreement) among philosophers and scientists. Karl Jaspers managed to import this discussion to the realm of psychiatry and psychopathology in a significant, but unresolved, manner. Side-tracked by the advent of various changes in psychiatry during the 20th century, phenomenology and philosophy of psychiatry have made a comeback in the last decades and, since then, developed new contributions to this subject. Quite similarly, the (...) study of time experience, standing on the shoulders of notorious philosophers, has too witnessed a similar renaissance, with groundbreaking developments across several conditions, including depression. The present essay is essentially exploratory, but during its development, after addressing the concepts of the methodenstreit debate, and tackling both meaningful and causal connections behind time dysperception in depression, I argue that understanding, at least in this context and at present time, is not entirely reducible to causal explanations, for some things are only gained in understanding, such as the feeling of being understood and the implications it carries for a therapeutic relationship and the treatment plan. (shrink)

In The Conditions for Ethical Chemical Restraint, Crutchfield and Redinger (2024) propose ethical standards for the use of chemical restraints, which they consider normatively distinct from physica...

John Cottingham focuses on two types of religious experience: general religious experience and specific religious experience. According to him, general experiences do not require special and complex education, scientific research or philosophical theorizing, but are a simple act of accepting a gift. Of course, unlike everyday observations, such experiences are not available to everyone and their realization requires special conditions. Regarding specific religious experiences, he also believes that when dealing with parts of the Bible that contain (...) reports of such experiences, one should neither have a naturalistic or demythologizing approach, nor an appearance-oriented approach; Rather, these verses should be interpreted in such a way that both its amazing content is preserved and this content does not conflict with modern science. Using the basics of Islamic philosophy, this work has a critical review of both parts of his view. The result of these criticisms is that due to the personal nature of evidences from religious experiences, the epistemological guarantee of these experiences is obtained through the rational and revelatory method. And based on this, these experiences cannot be considered as an independent path alongside the rational and revelatory path. Also, the observation of specific religious experiences is not a sensory observation and occurs in the container of human imagination and fantasy, without being a part of these experiences, they have become a characteristic of the self. (shrink)

"The Personal is Political": This was an often-heard slogan of feminist groups in the late sixties and early seventies. The slogan is no doubt open to many interpretations. There is one interpretation which touches on the epistemology of social facts, viz. the slogan claims that in assessing the features of a political system, personal experiences have privileged evidentiary value. For instancte, in the face of third person reports about political corruption, I may remain unmoved in my belief that the political (...) powers are morally upstanding, and it is only when I myself am adversely affected, that I come to change my views. There are two standard patterns of explanation of this type of belief formation: (i) We know that third-person reports may be lessreliable than first-person experiences; (ii) If the third-person reports are no less reliable than first-person experiences, we may just be dealing with a standard pattern of epistemic irrationality. However, we argue that there is also a much more surprising pattern of explanation: under certain conditions, a Bayesian argument can be proffered to the effect that it is rational to change one's beliefs in the face of personal experiences and not in the face of third-person reports, even if these experiences and reports are equally reliable. Hence, the feminist slogan (at least on one particular interpretation of it) receives unexpected support from Bayesian comers. We also show that this pattern of explanation has surprising repercussions on the question of the evidentiary value of miracles in philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The philosophical investigation of perceptual illusions can generate fruitful insights in the study of subjective time consciousness. However, the way illusions are interpreted is often controversial. Recently, proponents of the so-called dynamic snapshot theory have appealed to the Waterfall Illusion, a kind of motion aftereffect, to support a particular view of temporal consciousness according to which experience is structured as a series of instantaneous snapshots with dynamic qualities. This dynamism is meant to account for familiar features of the phenomenology (...) of time, such as succession, continuity, and change. Previous theories have typically appealed to a subjective present occupying an interval of time; that is, a “specious present.” I argue, through analysis of motion aftereffect illusions and the rare condition of akinetopsia, i.e. motion-blindness, that the Waterfall Illusion fails to support the dynamic snapshot theory as intended. Furthermore, I suggest that future theories of subjective time should see temporal phenomenology as the result of non-localised processes closely tied to the mechanism underlying consciousness generally. (shrink)

Experimental activity is traditionally identified with testing the empirical implications or numerical simulations of models against data. In critical reaction to the ‘tribunal view’ on experiments, this essay will show the constructive contribution of experimental activity to the processes of modeling and simulating. Based on the analysis of a case in fluid mechanics, it will focus specifically on two aspects. The first is the controversial specification of the conditions in which the data are to be obtained. The second is (...) conceptual clarification, with a redefinition of concepts central to the understanding of the phenomenon and the conditions of its occurrence. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that there is a visual field, but the analogous notion of an auditory field is rejected by many philosophers on the grounds that the metaphysics or phenomenology of audition lack the necessary spatial or phenomenological structure. In this paper, I argue that many of the common objections to the existence of an auditory field are misguided and that, contrary to a tradition of philosophical scepticism about the spatiality of auditory experience, it is as richly spatial (...) as visual experience—and in some ways even more so. By carefully considering the spatiality and boundedness of audition, along with how sounds or their sources are experienced as occurring within the surrounding acoustic environment, we can gain a better understanding of (i) our auditory experience of space and (ii) the conditions for the existence of spatial sensory fields in general in a way that does not privilege vision over the other senses. (shrink)

High-level allocation of attention is required for detecting changes in images under ‘flicker’ conditions, ie when an original and a modified image are repetitively alternated, with a blank field between each display (R A Rensink, J K O'Regan, J J Clark, 1995 Perception24 Supplement, 26). But how many items can attention ‘grab’ and compare during each display? To determine this capacity, search experiments were carried out under flicker conditions, with displays formed of arrays of rectangles. In half the (...) trials, displays differed by the position of one of the rectangles; in the other half, displays remained the same. Subjects were asked to determine if a change was occurring between the two displays. Performance was measured for several durations of displays and blank fields. In all cases, search showed a clear serial deployment of attention. Comparing the rate of this deployment against the rate of display alternation yielded the number of items compared at a time. Results indicate that, for display durations of less than 100 ms, average capacity is about 1.5 items. Capacity increases somewhat with longer display times, indicating that more items can be stored with increasing display time, or that more items are being grouped into each attentional ‘operand’. (shrink)